


From a Heart Swells a Rain

by Walking_Pillar_of_Salt



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: AU, Hanahaki Disease, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-09-28 15:38:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10129214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Walking_Pillar_of_Salt/pseuds/Walking_Pillar_of_Salt
Summary: Yuuri, frantic, types flowers in throat into the search bar, clicks the top article and reads:Hanahaki disease: an ailment that causes flowers to bloom in the throats of those experiencing unrequited love.He, reading faster than he’d ever had in his life, skims the rest of the description and treatment options to the bottom of the page, where, in brisk, clinical terms, his life was decided.Surgery, while painless, removes any memories of the person the afflicted loves.Without surgery, Hanahaki is usually fatal.





	1. Before

_The world had looked bright, at that Grand Prix._

_Yuuri hadn’t qualified - of course he hadn’t - but the inn was doing pretty well that year, so his parents took him anyway, so he could see the other skaters, but mostly so he could see Victor._

_The whole world was there to see Victor, though, so that was fine._

_He had won three Grand Prix in a row, and, if Yuuri were a betting man, he’d put everything he had on Victor winning his fourth._

_Yuuri and his family had actually gotten pretty decent seats - they had a unobstructed view of the rink - but they were running rather late, so, when the made it to their spot, Yuuri sat, quickly, the metal seat cold against his legs._

_“You’ve seen him before,” the commentator announced, “and you’ll most definitely see him again; please clap your hands for the reigning champion and the once and future king of ice skating, Victor Nikiforov!”_

_“Oh, did Victor draw first for the short program?” One of the triplets asked, only to be immediately shushed by the other two. “It’s starting!”_

_Yuuri turned to the ice to see Victor in the center, tall and imposing and eyes gently shut. His face was shadowed, his head bowed, and light reflected off the crown of his hair - he was bent in obeisance, in reverence, form lowered before the crowd._

_Everyone sat, spellbound, and, before the spell could break, Victor twirled into motion. His hair billowed behind him, contrasting the black of his shimmering costume. As he leapt, the eyes of the crowd followed him, excitement building in the room. He was sinuous, lissome, sliding with a grace that he likely came out of the womb with, because Yuuri had never seen anything like the way Victor moved before. He danced, serene and completely lost in the movement, in the moment, unaware of the impact he was having on the room. And as Victor easily shattered all of his previous records, the commentator shouted, excitement propelling his voice to a roaring crescendo that matched the screams of the crowd and the torrent of emotion cascading down Yuuri’s throat. Victor spun dizzyingly fast, and stopped, hand reached towards the ceiling lights and his future, spotlit and stretching endlessly beyond what anyone could see._

_Victor was magnificent, Yuuri thought, as everyone stood and screamed, their voices cacophonous and yet still quieter than the roaring in Yuuri’s ears. Victor was_ magnificent. __

_That night, Yuuri woke to white flower petals covering his chest._

-

“Oh, I recognize those!” Yuko says, eyes wide and unsuspecting of the blood dripping from the underside of the leaves.“My grandmother had some in her garden. They’re arbutuses, I think. Pretty, aren’t they?”

Yuuri smiles, gently, closing his eyes and holding the flowers tighter, so their thorns cut into his palms and blood trickles from his hands. “Yeah, they are.”

-

“Are you sure,” the physician says, her eyes distant, as if she’d had this conversation too many times and didn’t want to be here to have it again, “that you won’t reconsider?”

“I’m not having surgery.” Yuuri says, as his father gasps and his mother weeps behind him. “There’s too much that I’d have to give up.”

“I either skate until I die, or I make Victor Nikiforov fall in love with me.” he says, knowing which option was more likely.

Everyone looks at him, dismayed, but his mind is closed and his heart is wrenchingly open for all the room to see.

-

“This diagnosis isn’t so bad, you know?” his mom says over a steaming rice bowl that Yuuri hadn’t touched. “Hanahaki is uncommon, but -

“It can be cured if you just fall out of love.” Mari interrupts. The finality in her tone silences the dinner table, and Yuuri’s hackles rise with the brimming tension.

“There’s a reason I refused the surgery.” Yuuri says, eyes tracing the wooden panels on the ceiling.

The tension overflows.

-

“Yuuri,” Minako asks, “Why did you refuse the surgery?”

Yuuri stops stretching on the beam and turns to face her. “Minako,” he says, voice taut, “Who do you think made me want to skate in the first place?” 

“Oh god,” she gasps, hands flying to her mouth.

“Minako, Victor is my skating.” he continues, knowing how cruel he’s being. “If I forget him, I’ll forget skating too, and I’ll have nothing at all.”

-  
__

_“The quality of the flowers changes with the quality of your love.” the rakish bachelor says, his legs gracefully akimbo as he lounges artfully on a barstool. “Sometimes the flowers are thick and lush, like a full, complete love; sometimes they’re shriveled and jealous, or dark and thorny with repressed emotion.”_

_“Really?” the young woman says, her resplendent eyes lined with just a hint of brown eyeliner and an expensive blue eyeshadow. She leans in closer, and the sunlight highlights her perfect skin and the golden shine of her hair. “And what about my flowers?”_

_“Your flowers,” purrs the handsome man, smile slipping into a smirk, “seem to be the most beautiful of all.”_

_The two kiss, gently, then hungrily, and Yuuri’s mother quickly turns off the TV._

_“That’s enough of that now!” she says. “It’s not like that nonsense exists outside of Hollywood, anyway.”_

_She rubs Yuuri’s head._

_“Love’s not like that, you hear?” she looks into the distance, her stare reaching back a thousand years._

_“Love shouldn’t make you so willing to sacrifice yourself.”_

-

Skating has been getting harder. Stamina has always been Yuuri’s best attribute, but it’s hard to skate for long periods of time when your airway is blocked by flowers that won’t stop growing.

Celestino lets him take as many breaks as he needs, bringing over water bottles and an endless stream of concern. 

He hasn’t said anything, though, because Yuuri has some good days, on which he barely notices the burn the thorns cause in his throat, and skating, an old refuge that he now needs more than ever, is as easy as breathing used to be. His first competition after his diagnosis coincides with a good day, as does his second, and, suddenly, Yuuri finds himself scraping into the Grand Prix final. 

His tries to smile, but it seems like flowers pour out every time he opens his mouth.

-

Yuuri had fallen in love because Victor had surrendered himself to a crowd. At the last Grand Prix, Victor began his performance with a bow, kowtowing before the group of people who had made his life possible, his skating practical. He worshipped skating, and the people that gave it to him.

And, as Victor gave Yuuri his skating, Yuuri sees no reason why he shouldn’t do the same thing.

-  


It happened on a Tuesday.

He had been skating - when isn’t he skating, nowadays - and he had felt that now-familiar pressure against the back of his throat and, after a moment, a thick swell of a flower makes itself known, and Yuuri stops in the middle of a spin to let out a choking cough.

“You alright, Yuuri?” Phichit yells from across the rink. “You need to sit down?”

Yuuri coughs again, and most of the first flower slips, wetly, into his hand. “I’ll just make a run to the bathroom.” he rasps. “I’ll be back in a minute. Keep practicing without me.”

He skates off the ice as quickly as he can manage, and kicks his skates off besides his bag. Hand against his mouth, he runs to the bathroom, which was close enough that he reached it before the second flower made an appearance.

As soon as he makes it to the sink, he vomits, and suddenly he can’t stop the rush of flowers from coming out that he can’t stop that isn’t slowing down and _he can’t breathe-_

He collapses, clawing desperately at his throat as the flowers force themselves out of his chest, more flowers than he realized his body could hold, until he’s surrounded by a haze of blues and whites and his face is red as he tries to find his breath and never let it loose.

 _I can’t stop this._ He realizes, in an epiphany so crystal-clear it seems like he knew it all along. _I can’t get rid of this.  
I’m going to die._

-  


His symptoms worsen. Some days, he wakes up with his head wreathed in flowers, thorns and all, with his throat so littered with lacerations that when he looks in the mirror his teeth are covered in blood, the roots stained red.

Yuuri’s fine with this, though. He knows he’s lucky to be waking up.

-

“Yuuri, you’re going to die.” Mari says, with her arms crossed and her mouth a harsh line. “Why don’t you just tell him how you feel at the Grand Prix? It’s not as if you have anything to lose.”

“I can’t tell him - he’d feel pressured to be in a relationship he shouldn’t be in.” Yuuri says, voice firm. “I can’t tell anyone that isn’t family, because I can’t risk him knowing.”

“I can’t force him to love me - that wouldn’t be fair.” He pins Mari with his stare.

“I don’t want anyone else to not have a choice.”

-  


Yuuri can’t stop looking at the glass. 

Skaters, from all around the world, twirl around the ice around him, practicing their routines before the short program. They are all beautiful, the competitors Yuuri would only have this one chance to compete against. Christophe is a contrast of smooth curves and hard lines, his skating much the same, and JJ coasts, eyes bright and sharper than his skates, and Victor is Victor, and therefore it hurt Yuuri to look at him for too long, so instead Yuuri stared at the glass.

He can’t stop looking at the glass, because at least then his reflection looks back.

While they warm up, they learn that Yuuri drew first for the short program, which meant that he’d be performing soon after warmup. Yuuri sighs, and pulls off to the side of the rink. 

“Hey!” Someone yells from behind him. He turns, and is greeted by a sly grin that is far too close. “Good luck, alright?” Christophe winks, and he slaps Yuuri on the back as he skates past. Yuuri coughs from the jolt, and a full flower appears in his hands, far too big for him to hide.

“Yuuri?” Christophe asks, suddenly far more hesitant. He turns around, skating towards Yuuri until he stops in front of him. “Yuuri, that flower’s huge, how long have you had Hana-”

“I’ll be fine, Christophe.” Yuuri says brusquely.

“No, seriously, with a flower that size, you’re in no shape to perform -”

“Chris!” Yuuri shouts. The other skaters turn towards them, and Yuuri quickly lowers his voice. “I’ve been fine for this long. Let it rest.”

Chris clearly makes to say something else, but Yuuri ignores him, skating to the edge of the rink. He hops out, quickly sitting on the bench and pulling out his phone for his earbuds, which he sticks in as a nonverbal challenge. 

Everyone leaves him alone for a while - enough time for him to try to regain his bearings, and rebalance after Chris knocked him off his feet.

The end of one of his shoelaces is ragged, he realizes. The aglet dangles, about to fall off his shoelace entirely, and the thread underneath it is threadbare and sagging. 

He fiddles it with it halfheartedly in an attempt to fix it. The aglet is obstinate, though, and fights him as he tries to bend it back into shape-

“Yuuri, you’re gonna do great out there.” Chris says.

Yuuri startles, his skates clacking against the floor as his lifts his feet. He pulls his earbuds out and says, “Chris, I told you, I don’t need any of your conce-"

“I know,” Chris says, suddenly desperate, and he moves from where he’s standing in front of Yuuri to kneel, gripping Yuuri’s shoulders tight. “But all the same, I think you’ll do well. Just don’t push yourself too hard, okay?”

Chris looks down at his skates, hiding his face for a second, and then looks up again, eyes wider than they’d been before and all the more pleading. “Please?”

His eyes look like the leaves outside of Hatsetsu in the summer, Yuuri realizes. They catch the light in the same way, reflecting it and taking it as their own.

“Chris -” Yuuri says, before his heart lodges in his throat. “Thank you.” 

Yuuri tries to say something else - tries to put his gratitude into words - but his throat seizes, and what he thought was his heart turned out to be a flower, perfectly formed and suddenly in Yuuri’s lap, along with the blood dribbling from his mouth.

“Yuuri.” Chris says, voice almost as gentle as it was sad, “How long has this been going on?”

Yuuri wipes the blood from his face, smearing it as he does so. “A year.”

Chris’s mouth twists into something between a smile and a grimace. “You can’t have long, then.”

“My doctor says I should expect about a month.” Yuuri replies, and coughs up some more blood.

Chris pauses, like his thoughts are clogged in his throat, and, without warning, grabs the flower from Yuuri’s lap and spins it in his hands. “Your flowers are gorgeous, though.”

Yuuri lets out a rough chuckle, wincing as it irritates the scabs in his throat. “I’m not sure how much that matters, in the end.”

Chris looks at Yuuri intently, and Yuuri shifts in his seat under the scrutiny, but holds Chris’s gaze. 

Chris breaks away first, looking instead at the blood staining Yuuri’s hands. “This will probably be your last competition, so skate like you’ve never skated before, alright? Give me and Victor a challenge on the podium.”

Yuuri’s heart trembles a little at the mention of Victor, but he smiles weakly. “Okay.”

“And Yuuri?” Chris adds. “Give whoever you’re skating for a show, alright?”

Yuuri looks away, but his eyes mist over all the same. “I will,” he says, voice cracking. 

“And take this back,” Chris says, forcing the flower into Yuuri’s hands. “You’re going to need it.”

Yuuri looks up, desolate, but the announcer interrupts with a notice about the short program before he can find where he put his words.

“That’s your cue, right?” Chris says, standing up from where he’d knelt. 

Yuuri watches as he goes, and feels a sense of loss so keenly in his chest that words come pouring out, unbidden. “It’s Victor, Chris.”

“I know.” Chris says, and walks away.

Yuuri sits for a moment, trying to figure out how to gather his emotions, which fly around him akimbo. He folds in on himself, and looks at his knees and the blood staining his costume. 

_This is my last performance, is it?_ he thinks, and he looks around the rink until his eyes reach Victor, who sits alone, hand on his cheek and eyes on the surface of the ice.

_Victor, don’t look away._

He stands, resolute, and walks onto the ice. 

“And Katsuki Yuuri takes the ice! This is his first time as a Grand Prix finalist, and he’ll be - wait, is that blood-”

Yuuri ignores the rest, eyes hardening as he finds Victor again. Victor meets his eyes, this time, and he looks startled, his hand tracing something on his cheek.

Yuuri checks his reflection in the glass, and he sees that he still has blood on his face from where he wiped it earlier. 

He looks at Victor again, and feels his face morph into something raw, his eyes showing the world the truth he’s been hiding.

_If this is my last chance -_

_I’ll show the world what you mean to me._

“And the performance begins! Katsuki’s going for a triple axel as his first jump - wait, he’s changed it to a quadruple!”

-

Yuuri loves Victor.

Well, of course he does. Victor had made him what he was; he’s so entrenched in Yuuri’s heart and mind that Yuuri keeps finding bits and pieces of him in places that he wouldn’t think to look. 

Victor’s made a home in the base of his spine, in the dips of his ankles, and in the back of his throat, with the spit-soaked flowers that he can’t hold back.

But Yuuri doesn’t know Victor. He hasn’t been privy to Victor’s personal moments - he’s missed celebrations and pink birthday candles and fireworks singing towards the sky; lonely nights where Victor’s heart was held captive by the distant stars, who were mean and cold and refused to let him loose; he’s missed countless long silences and empty in-betweens and everything else. He’s missed Victor’s life.

But he doesn’t want to _keep_ missing it, he realizes as he leaps in the air. He wants, desperately, to be a part of the world he’s dreamt of for so long, and now, when he looks at Victor, he can’t help but feel an audacious sort of hope.

And he hopes, and hopes, and hopes, and he finishes his final spin and collapses, and the world screams all at once. 

-  


Yuuri can’t stop panicking.

He’s breathing too fast, too hard, trying to stop his body from shaking as he’s wracked with coughs, convulsing as the flowers spill out on the ice, each larger than the last.

“Yuuri,” someone says, “you’ve got to calm down, you’re going to choke -”

Yuuri lifts his head, but the world is too blurry - everything’s made up of vague, distorted shapes, indistinct and blending with the overpowering blue of the ice. A flower swells out, and his head falls again, cracking back against the ground. 

“Yuuri.” someone says, and there’s a pair of eyes in front of his face, flecked with green and gold and explosively powerful, like the center of a supernova as it dies. “Someone’s here to see you.”

Yuuri raises his head one last time, and, suddenly, green is replaced with blue, of a riverbank with tears swelling over the edge. 

“Yuuri,” Victor says, and the flowers stop.

“Victor,” Yuuri gasps, and suddenly the world is vividly clear, Victor’s face a revelation made of a worried mouth and a pink nose and grieving eyes that he’d recognize at the end of the world. 

“Yuuri,” Victor says, voice filled with emotions genuine but rusty, as if he hadn’t had a chance to feel them for too long. “Who are your flowers for?”

Yuuri almost wants to laugh, but he’s crying too hard for that to be feasible. “They’re yours. They always were.”

Victor’s eyes erupt, his face twisting into something so pained as to be unrecognizable. His face is a riot in the streets, a screaming crowd and chanting choir, heralding the end of the world. 

“When did you fall in love with me, Yuuri?” Victor half yells, the rest of his voice muffled by his tears. 

Yuuri spits blood, which explodes into a constellation on the ice, and lifts his head, meeting Victor’s eyes. “At the last Grand Prix. When you bowed to the crowd as you broke the world record.”

“Yuuri, that wasn’t enough,” Victor stutters, his eyes incandescent and his tears getting in the way of his words. “Don’t die for - don’t die for -”

Yuuri’s chest convulses, but he looks at Victor and can’t find himself regretting anything.

“I found you whole, after a long and terrible silence.” Yuuri murmurs. “There’s nothing for me to regret.”

-

Victor can’t think straight, looking at a dream sprawled out on a bed of flowers.

Yuuri, after a performance so bright Victor couldn’t shake off the afterimages, spiraled, reduced from a man from the highest point in his life to one from the brink of death in an instant. He had run over, but he couldn’t catch someone who was already falling. He had intended to stay in the back, to watch, observe, but Chris had pushed him to the front, and Yuuri spoke, and he didn’t know how he could breathe with the intensity of feeling this much.

“I’m sorry for telling you like this,” Yuuri murmurs, stroking Victor’s cheek. “You deserved better.” 

“It’s - it’s alright, Yuuri,” Victor says, spellbound by the tragedy in front of him, the one holding his face like he was something precious. Victor wants his eyes to follow the movement of Yuuri’s hand, but finds that he isn’t willing to leave Yuuri’s eyes behind. They’re dark, and clouded from the blood loss and pain, but there’s something unbearably keen hidden behind the haze. Yuuri’s eyes are poignant, powerful - _searchlights_ , Victor realizes - and now, even though Victor had spent all of his life that mattered showing the world bits and pieces of himself, he finds himself trembling before the weight of what those eyes demand of him.

 _Love me,_ those eyes command.

 _Okay,_ Victor thinks. _Okay._


	2. After

Victor wakes up.

The room is warm - made of comfy chairs and soft wood and a sleeping body, lying at his side. Victor knows that Yuuri - the body beside him and the heart he can’t believe is his - is warm because their feet are intertwined under the blanket, his toes hiding in the crook of Victor’s knee.

Then again, Victor’s constantly been warm recently, so perhaps it’s just that he can no longer tell the difference. In the warmth of the morning and Hatsetsu and the whole world, these days, Victor’s not sure if he’s ever felt loneliness at all - he’s not even sure if he remembers what it means.

Yuuri’s eyelashes quiver, and his eyes open with a flash, and Victor is stunned by the sun both rising in the sky and lying his bed, nestled in blankets and dog hair and with a sleep-easy smile. 

“Good morning, Victor.” Yuuri says, voice an old-and-new familiar. 

Victor turns his head into the pillow and smiles so brightly he’s sure Yuuri can see it shining through the sheets. “Good morning, Yuuri.”

-

Some days, the light recedes. 

Some days, Yuuri can’t stop thinking about the past, and how it dogs his footsteps, weeds tying his ankles down with every step.

He tries to keep it secret, because it’s not like Victor hadn’t saved him already - it’s not like he hasn’t caused Victor enough grief. 

And so Yuuri hides, and, eventually, Victor finds him - as Victor, thankfully, always has. 

They make breakfast, one morning, hands sliding slow against pans and plates and each other. Victor’s a sucker for pancakes, and Yuuri’s a sucker for Victor, so they cook together, Victor pouring perfect pancakes while Yuuri tries his best to keep the kitchen clean as Victor trails flour on the counters. 

“It’s a group effort,” Victor says as batter drips from the lip of the mixing bowl. “I want you to have something to do.”

Yuuri grabs the pink washrag they store on the oven handle in exasperation. “That doesn’t mean that you should try to make a mess!” 

“I’m not trying,” Victor says, giving Yuuri a coy smile from under his fringe. “ _This_ ,” he beams, throwing flour in Yuuri’s hair, “is trying!”

Yuuri yelps, and reaches for Victor, who darts away and runs around the kitchen with the bowl full of batter. They run around the kitchen, Victor fleeing and Yuuri chasing, until the batter spills out of the bowl and Victor slips on it, landing on the hardwood with the upside bowl of mix in his lap, seeping into his pajama pants. 

Yuuri stops, and Victor fixes him with a long-suffering stare. They stay that way, poised to continue, until Makkachin runs in and begins lapping the batter off of Victor’s legs, and Victor lets out a girlish shriek. 

Yuuri cackles, and slides down to the floor, holding his stomach as laughter forces its way out. He laughs for a minute, and then another, until Victor realizes that he’s not laughing as much as he is wheezing, and Victor doesn’t know how to make it stop.

“YUURI!” Victor shouts, moving to his side. 

Yuuri wraps his arms around his knees, his breaths coming out in sharp, disjointed gasps. 

“I’m sorry.” he pants, eyes shut in resignation. “When I get too happy and think too much, it feels like there are flowers in my throat again.”

He sucks in air - desperately, like he’s dying again - and looks Victor in the eyes.

“There are too many flowers in my head, Victor,” Yuuri says, as a tear slips down his cheek, “And I can’t get them out.”

He presses his hands to his face, and the flour on his fingers leaves white lines on his white skin, and Victor wants to hug him, if only so he’d look less like he’s about to break.

Victor pauses for a moment, and orders his thoughts into a line, so he doesn’t overwhelm Yuuri with the wave of emotions cresting and crashing and breaking in his head.

“You really thought you were going to die, didn’t you?” Victor asks, because he had to know, had to know how much bleeding he had to staunch.

“I...” Yuuri mumbles, eyes on the pancake batter dripping from Victor’s pants. “Yeah. I did.”

Victor expected that answer - had asked that question knowing what Yuuri would say - and yet his chest still quaked, like there were thorns curling around _his_ lungs. 

His inhales roughly, air catching in his throat. 

“It’s okay now, alright?” Victor says. “The flowers are gone, and you...”

He strokes Yuuri’s cheek, smudging the flour and inadvertently smearing pancake batter with it, until Yuuri’s cheek is a gooey mess and Yuuri’s sadness is tempered by a fond exasperation.

“Could you,” Yuuri asks, “maybe not do that?”

They must make a picture, Victor thinks, framed with pancake batter and flour and a sticky Makkachin, and the emotions so obvious that they’re seeping out of Victor’s ribs, pink and blue and made of love.  

 _I love him._ Victor knows. 

_He’s safe, I did it, and I love him._

-

The branches and brambles gallop, running above and below each other in a seamless stream, a river, a breeze uninterrupted and stretching into the distant forest. The sun paints the trees and the ground and Yuuri’s smile, and and he looks so bright and happy and so distinctly different from the aching mess that he had been before that Victor’s chest hurts with the sheer joy of it. The sun catches in Yuuri’s hair and eyes and heart, and he’s dazzling, now that he’s found happiness and holds it tight.

“Where do you want to settle for the picnic, Victor?” Yuuri asks, and Victor’s thoughts fall from the treetops and the sky above into the leaves strewn across the path. He shakes his head, trying to clear his mind of the Yuuri of the past so he can focus on the wonder - wearing cherry-red cheeks and a threadbare blue sweater and an expression Victor thought he’d spend his life looking for - in front of him.

Yuuri notices his disorientation and gives him an amused look. “I’ll find a place, since you’re so lost in your head.”

Victor smiles and nods, but he can’t help but pause on Yuuri’s phrasing: how can Victor be lost in his head if he’s thinking of Yuuri, who is something he was so lucky to find? 

Yuuri grabs his wrist, thumb and middle finger encircling it entirely. “Come on, you big lug!” 

Victor lets himself be dragged to a little sunlit spot, framed by a callow sapling bent down to admire the sprawling spread of leaves that mark the place Yuuri plops Victor down in.

“Hey!” Victor says, as the leaves crackle beneath him. 

Yuuri gives him a cheeky grin, and Victor throws as many leaves as he can in the air, blocking Yuuri from view entirely, because Yuuri’s grins were too bright to look at for long.

“Victor!” Yuuri says, delighted, and he grabs his own share of leaves and coats Victor with autumn splendor. 

The leaves cling, and a few get in his hair. Victor pulls at them, but they stay stuck, and Yuuri starts laughing and doesn’t seem particularly inclined to stop. Victor sends him a pout, and Yuuri stops his full-bellied giggle and lets out a laugh like a champagne bubble, too pink and pretty to pop. Victor lets it float in the air, committing it to memory so he’ll have it long after it bursts and soaks him through.

Yuuri does stop laughing eventually, though, and Victor feels liquid slide down his cheeks.

“Victor?” Yuuri asks. “Are you... are you alright?”

Victor looks at him again - at his blue-rimmed glasses barely balancing on his nose, at his downturned mouth and dream-bright eyes whose depths Victor wants to spend his life uncovering. He sniffles, and wipes his nose on his sleeve.

“I love you so goddamn much.” Victor cries, “And you nearly died before I even had a chance to meet you at all.”

“Victor...” Yuuri says, “I’m sorry -”

“I know you are!” Victor sobs. “And I know why you did what you did, but I just...”

He stops for a second, trying to prevent the storm of his thoughts from raining so hard. 

“Knowing that doesn’t make it hurt any less, that you thought that was necessary.” He says, barely audible over the sounds of the leaves and his heart, beating on the forest floor. “I was almost too late.”

Yuuri pulls him into a hug, hands splayed around Victor’s ribs and rubbing the knobs of his spine. “I’m sorry, Victor. I’m sorry.”

They stay like that for a while, until Victor’s tears subside and Yuuri feels like he can let Victor go. 

-

Yuuri, one day, finds Victor on his knees in a flower bed outside of the inn, framed by joyous poppies and flourishing hydrangeas. 

“A flower garden?” Yuuri asks, 

Victor looks at the torn dirt and perky marigolds beneath him. “I wanted to give you flowers, too. Is that… is that okay?”

Yuuri tilts his head and gives Victor a trembling sort of smile. “It’s okay.”

They raise it together. Although Victor is green - vital, rejuvenating, life-affirming, and Yuuri would never get sick of breathing him in - in all the ways that matter, his thumbs aren’t (Yuuri likes to think they’re blue) and it shows in every plant he touches. The flowers flourish under Yuuri’s hands, however, and before long, they have towering sunflowers, elegant and changeable, and shy lilies, intertwining with the fence post and Yuuri’s heartstrings. 

Yuuri likes to be outside, in the garden. Most days, Victor, with Makkachin at his feet, will join him, and they sit and watch the flood of guests enter the inn and pretend not to stare at their clasped hands in-between them.

Yuuri had been hesitant to grow flowers, at first, considering how much of that he’d done in the past. But with Victor and with the peace of being (and, ultimately, the ability to be at all) he brought by staying at Yuuri’s side, there was something new blooming in Yuuri’s ribs, and he wasn’t scared of what was growing in his chest, anymore. 

-

“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” Yuuri mumbles one night, swaddled in a woolen yellow blanket with a hole near his thigh. “You’re not - you’re not staying because you feel obligated to, right? You’re staying because you want to?”

Victor lifts his head from his phone and turns to face Yuuri, his sleep shirt slipping from his shoulder. “Do you,” Victor murmurs, awake but quiet, trying not to disturb old ghosts, “know how lonely I was, before you?”

Yuuri leans into Victor’s side and shakes his head, his hair brushing Victor’s chest.

Victor leans back. “There were so many things that I wanted, Yuuri,” Victor says, and Yuuri tries to ignore the way Victor’s chest shakes, “and skating was barely enough to soothe the ache.”

“I think I would have quit, without you,” Victor says, “so please don’t ever leave.”

-

Yuuri’s inescapable, now that Victor knows him. Victor sees him in the the coarse Hatsetsu sand, in falling leaves, in pale of the morning sun. Yurio tells him he’s being silly, when they talk on the phone. He says that Victor fell too fast, and a relationship built on something so fragile as Yuuri’s heart could never last. 

Victor disagrees, however; he figures that he can’t be wearing rose-colored glasses if everything really is golden.

-

A creak - the mattress dips.

Makkachin whines, harsh and keening, and Yuuri groans in protest, covering his head with a pillow, but, regardless, the room drowns in the sudden flood of morning light. 

He shakes his head, but the light chased his sleep away, so he looks to the window, where Victor stands, looking out over Hatsetsu at the dawn.

Victor’s silhouette is soft, blending against the smooth curve of morning clouds and the roll of the open sea. The Hatsetsu mountains come out of the sky and Victor stands there, ready to embrace the rising sun.

Victor’s beautiful like this, Yuuri realizes. He’s always beautiful, but especially now as he greets the day, a part of the scenery - a part of Yuuri’s home that can never be removed.

Yuuri lifts himself out of bed and hugs Victor from the side. “I love you.” he says.

Victor turns from the view and smiles against his cheek. “I love you too.” Yuuri feels a rush in his stomach and beams, because his life is new, now. Now, that his world isn’t dying and he isn’t dead, Yuuri can find it within himself to dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> join me on my infant Tumblr: https://walking-pillar-of-salt.tumblr.com


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